Email list issue – what would you do?
As you all may have known (or not) I participated in this fun little Internet grab bag prize pack thing with Shannon Cherry called Be Heard! Day.
Twelve people got together and we all pitched in something for free that would help people be heard by others. It could be PR related, it could be networking related (that’s me!) or a number of other things.
It’s a targeted list-building thing. I’d never been part of one before and didn’t know what to expect.
Everything started out all well and good. I ended up doubling my list overnight and ending up tripling my list by the end of the week. I had no idea people actually wanted to read what I had to offer. (I call it modesty, my friends call it stupidity, you can call it whatever you want *grin*)
So here is where it gets hairy.
I receive this email (edited so you won’t know who it is, I’m not that bitchy):
Subject: no free report….and too many forms….
I went to your link to sign up for your report for Be Heard Day.
You page is very confusing. I was always told that you should never have two sign up sections on the same page. Now I know why.
I saw only the one on the left and filled it out, but there was no reference to the promotional gift. Then I realized I had filled out your regular newsletter form. The problem is that the Be Heard form in further down the page and the visitor doesn’t see it unless they scroll down. So the first view is your newsletter form on the left.
So I went back to your page and scrolled and saw the second form to fill out. I filled it out and again – there was no reference to the report you are offering. There is only promo on our new book coming up but no special report on “Personable vs. Professional” or whatever the title was.
If I didn’t know who you were, I would not want to continue and would write to get unsubscribed. But since I do know who you are, I decided to write to you to let you know what’s happening and to ask if you can unsubscribe me and tell me how to start over. I don’t want to receive duplicate newsletters and I’m sure that will happen. And of course I would love to have your report.
Okay, first off…I’m not sure why she didn’t just send an email that said “I didn’t get the link could you please forward it again” – but I’m sure she was trying to give me some helpful advice. I appreciate helpful advice and as you guys know, I’m always open to hearing what you have to say.
The kicker is that on the page she’s taken to, in bold, in the middle of the screen it says “Sign up below and we will send your report to you in a few minutes!” I mean, if you didn’t read anything else on the screen, you’d read the bold line right in front of your eyes, right? The other sign up box (on the left and above…not below as it says in the bold text) says “Email+Name=Newsletter” – my guess is she was trying to get her free stuff and get off the page as fast as possible so she didn’t read a word on the page and just stuck her information in as soon as possible.
My secondary kicker on this is that she already received an autoresponder with an unsubscribe link – this is someone who has a list and does teleseminars, etc. – what is she using to manage her list where you have to email people to be unsubscribed? The link to do that is right in her inbox.
The third (uber-petty) kicker is that she lists the title of the report and then says “or whatever the title was” – snarky, much?
So I sent her a Gmail email (’cause I’m all about the Gmail and fun anchor text links in email) with the link to the report. Unfortunately, I made it a clickable link that, for whatever reason, she couldn’t open. She emailed again “the link didn’t work” (I had tested it before sending, just fyi) so I sent her the direct .pdf link. Right after I hit send on that email I received another that said “It finally opened” and then *another email* in response to the .pdf link email that said, “I was able to open it, see my previous email.”
Are you surprised I actually took her email address off of all my lists? The thought of her receiving a link (or anything) in the newsletter and giving me another lecture disguised as helpful advice was too much to bear. (Remember this, it’s an important plot element!)
Now, that anecdote is not worthy of a blog post. It was a little frustrating, because this is someone who is on the Internet *a lot* participating in social networking forums, etc. – if I didn’t know who it was, I would assume they were a n00b and laugh it off.
Here is where it becomes blog-worthy (in my opinion) – I receive an email this morning (thinking the fiasco was over, right?):
As suspected, I am getting duplicate messages from you. I was going to unsubscribe to one, but I think it will unsubscribe me entirely since it’s the same email address.
Can you unsubscribe one for me?
Sorry for the inconvenience but we do need to streamline our email.
My jaw *bounced* on the floor. Seriously, I don’t know if I’ll ever get it re-hinged properly. I unsubscribed her from all my lists yesterday! Then, this morning, I get emails from iContact that this person has signed up twice on the wrong list.
Even though I worked with Internet marketers for years, I never built a list. I shy away from anything that requires customer service. Not because I don’t like helping people – but becasue I don’t have a lot of tolerance for people doing things that don’t make any sense. Unsubscribe yourself, for goodness sake! It would take a hell of a lot less time than sending me these “wow” inspiring emails. Just because you popped your email into a form on my website does not relieve you of all responsibility from that point forward.
Needless to say, I removed it again, and only you, me, and the fencepost know that she signed up for my list oodles of times and then tried to blame it on the complexity of having too many forms on my website.
Please, feel free to visit http://www.marketingcurve.com/be-heard-day and tell me if you feel that there are “too many forms” on the site. Is the bold text in the middle of the screen too small? I mean, of the hundreds (yes, I said hundreds) of people that went to that page and signed up, this is the only instance where someone said there was a problem.
In case there were others, I plan on sending out another email today with the link to my report in the email. I already had a contingency plan in place, because you know, not everyone is perfect, and I’m not scrutinizing anyone that accedentally ended up on the wrong list, I mean, I’m sure I’ve done that before. It’s the tone and length of the emails I received about it. So….I mean, does this person think that makes me want to communicate with them in list format? Do they think I don’t care as long as I have a lot of people on my list?
The answer to that is a hearty, resounding no. I’d rather have 20 people on my list that know me then a billion on my list who don’t care about me. I’m a relationship builder and this list thing…I feel like it really opens me up to be given free advice by people I don’t want advice from. I can’t even respond and tell them what I really think.
Manners. Sigh.
There was an instance where someone hadn’t received the link yet and emailed me with a request for the link, but it takes iContact about five minutes to send out the second email. They wanted their stuff “now” – see, that I’m totally cool with that, no drama. I sent the link and they let me know when they got the email with the link so I’d know how long it was taking. Good times!
Oh, and if you want the products from other people you can go to http://www.beheardfirst.com - some of them look really interesting.
Note: The Be Heard First site goes not-live-anymore on March 20th, so if you do want the goodies, make with the goodie getting today or tomorrow, cause March 20th…the goodies will be gone.
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3 Responses to “Email list issue – what would you do?”
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Yep – I’m a Joiner!
Ok I am not sure where she was but when I signed up I had no issue and I saw the bold print telling me where to go. Guess what…it worked!
I just went to your page again and saw no problem. The reference to one sign up per page is not relevant to a promo such as the one for “Be Heard”. Sure you could have made a separate opt in page, but why when you explained how to get the report.
By the way, having a list does not necessarily equate to customer service…..LOL!
LaTara Ham-Ying, Vega Cooking Coachn’s last blog post..Do You Think Outside the Typical Food Box?
I went to your site for Be Heard Day and the first thing I saw, dead center was the form for your newsletter with the Be Heard Day promotional piece. Seemed pretty clear to me. Sure, there’s another form at the top left for the newsletter only, but I’m not sure how anyone could miss the giant headline: “Celebrating Be Heard! Day with Shanon Cherry.” Call me crazy, but it seems like a very bizarre situation that you endured.
Thank you SO much ladies! I was seriously thinking, maybe it was me!! I mean, I understand how the other box could be a little confusing, and I’ll definately consider using a one column page next time…but I hate to think that I’ll have to compromise the integrity of my design for one person.
You guys are great, thanks for commenting!